Zenith Bank pays N411bn dividend and appoints new chairman as Jim Ovia retires
TL;DR
Zenith Bank approved a total dividend of N10.00 per share for the 2025 financial year, a 100% increase, at its 35th AGM held on May 5, 2026, at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Founder Jim Ovia formally retired as chairman after 20 years as CEO and 12 years as chairman; he has been succeeded by Mustapha Bello, an engineer, former minister of commerce, and the bank's longest-serving non-executive director since 2017.
Intelligence
Zenith Bank's second consecutive trillion-naira profit year and doubled dividend payout signal that Nigeria's tier-one banks are generating returns that rival or exceed many global peers, making them increasingly attractive to institutional and retail investors reassessing Nigerian equities.
For Nigerian shareholders and portfolio investors, the bank's stated commitment to growing dividends further in 2026 and shareholder expectations of ₦50 per share in the coming years set a high benchmark that will pressure other large-cap Nigerian banks to demonstrate comparable earnings discipline and payout ratios within the coming months.
The smooth, internally managed leadership transition from Ovia to Bello also reinforces Zenith's governance narrative, which matters to foreign institutional investors who have historically discounted Nigerian bank stocks partly on succession risk.
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